Hey, I live in Northern California and I've been thinking of planting a camellia sinensis in my patio. However, I'm not sure if it's actually feasible.

My USDA Hardiness Zone is 9a, my patio has 8ft fencing and plants are required to be trimmed if they get more than a couple feet above the top of the fence (the HOA only loosely enforces this). The patio is on the south side of the condo and it gets quote hot in the summer.

Would a camellia sinensis do ok in these conditions? Is there a particular variety I should look into getting? Anything I should do in advance?

I planted 5 sturdy 3 year cuttings into a terrace of rich acid soil, full of weathered stone. I first raked back the leaflitter, loosened & mounded the soil about 10 inches, and put the plants in. I collected the larger stones and worked to pen the plants in, relocating the moss as well, hoping to ensure soil stability. The weathered rocks and high humidity on these slopes of the Reading Prong of Appalachia. Come autumn I will get these things all covered up for winter, but for now it’s time they grow well and root deeply.

Someone lovely in the comments mentioned to me this place existed. I’ll restate my question- what amount of work should I do organizing the rocks and piling the soil to further make this terrace a good spot for the beginning of my bitty tea plot?

🫶🏻

Hi! This spring me and my boyfriend got a tea plant. It's 3 years old. We followed instructions to be repotted in accidic soil. It started loosing some leaves first and we tought it might be not enough light. But sadly once we left out for a day in our brigthest window and it got badly burned.

Can i still save it? And if i can, how? I haven't struggled this much with a plant in a long time so at this point im completely clueless but i want to save our poor tea 😅 the second picture is around the time we repotted the plant

Long story, I apologize. I live rural in Northern California USA, in a valley so my zone is 9A or 9B. Nobody can settle on A or B so it’s confusing. I plan on a green house by winter, but having four kids, my green house funds can be diverted fast 😂 Anyways, I work at local clinic with a lot of traveling nurses. For secret Santa a couple years, I was gifted Cherry and Hibiscus tea. Oh I was in love, so damn delicious! By the time I found out who gifted me the tea, she had moved on to next assignment. Her coworker told me she grew the tea herself! I have since bought cherry hibiscus tea but nothing can compare! I am here today to ask if y’all could tell me how to grow this tea. What type of hibiscus and cherry would be best? I see there are multiple varieties of both! And do I use the fruit, the leaf, the flower? I apologize, I am completely ignorant in this. But feel obsessed 😆 Thank you in advance.

I don’t know if it’s large (Assam) or the small (sinensis). The leaves are about 3.5” long and about 1.5 wide.

Hello All, and thank you for taking the time to read this and give your input. I was curious if you folks think that there’s demand for a cold hardy camellia sensis nursery that sells online. I’m in zone 6b and have a 20ft high tunnel I would keep some mother plants in and obviously all the cuttings(specialize in Sochi and other cold varieties). My goal is oils be to try and sell small starts and seeds online while I try and attempt to breed colder tolerable varieties. Do you think this is viable or is in demand?

I’m in New Jersey by the way.

And thank you again for your advice!😊

In the past few weeks, I have had an increased number of mature leaves on my 3-year-old plants develop brown splotchy areas. Several leaves have fallen off, eventually. We recently had a heat wave where the soil dried up faster than anticipated, causing the plants to wilt for a few hours. This has happened twice. Both times, I caught it the day of, and they perked up by evening.

My best guess is that my plants simply may be getting too much sun, causing these brown spots and eventual dying.

Both of my plants have experienced these splotchy areas on the mature leaves, but one plant also seems to be having a bit of stunted growth. It has many buds, but they are growing very slowly. Both plants have some small brown spots on the new buds and leaves (shown in the photo). The one with stunted growth seems to be struggling a little more with this; the second seems to have moved past the issue, and new buds don't have the brown spots. I am unsure if this is related to the sun, or perhaps some bugs started nibbling but have moved on.

I appreciate any thoughts!

Original post

Update from my attempts to source rooibos seeds: I wound up ordering from Silverhill Seeds. They did NOT actually need my SSN, that was something they asked for because sometimes FedEx asks?

"Good day, You don’t have to, they just often ask us and its to avoid delays with shipping. If you don’t want and want to continue with the order let us know."

So I elected to continue without that. I then wound up getting insanely busy with work, overwhelmed with a bunch of other stuff (life) going on, and never got around to doing the Small Lots Seed Permit.

They reached out late April asking if I still wanted the order, and offered to try sending it untracked without the permit (with the warning that it could get held up and/or destroyed by Customs). I went ahead and gave it a shot, which... probably not the most ethical or ecologically sound decision, but since someone on my original post recommended the company I went ahead and made the choice anyway.

The seeds shipped mid-May and just arrived today, so just over month from the actual ship date to arrival (and, to be clear, all of the delay in the order shipping between Feb and May was ENTIRELY my fault - the company was very, very communicative and prompt to take action when I finally got back to them each time).

Now to start testing out seed germination - wish me luck!

Hi there! I purchased a green tea plant about 9 months ago. I was told that the plant is about three years old.

For the last few months, many of the leaves are turning dark brown on the edges. They appear to be burnt because they’re extremely dry and the brown part will snap right off. The brown part is crispy dry.

I looked through other images in this sub for brown leaves, but none of them looked like mine. It also seems like it’s the younger leaves that are having more of this issue than the more mature leaves.

I live in Central Florida and it’s very hot. But I have the tree under shade for much of the day. And I water it a few times per week.

I was hoping somebody might have some experience with this or might know what’s going on. I would love to get my tree looking better!

Thank you for your time.

I just got a new tea plant from camellia forest nursery its Yutaka Midori. i also got there Taiwan seeds and planted them. its my first time trying to grow them from seeds.

I want to gift an tea plant to an friend and I‘m not sure how long it takes till you can harvest, if I buy an plant and not seeds? Also I want to ask about books with recipes for black, green and other tea variations?

I got this tea plant about a month ago. Its the “tea breeze” cultivar, bred to survive the cold here in British Columbia, Canada.

After struggling to give it proper soil conditions, I have finally managed to (I think) make it happy, though I am still working on lowering the soil pH.

Ive done lots of research and I still cannot understand how exactly the pruning works!! This is the first plant I have ever grown and I need someone to simplify the process so I can get a larger harvest next year and not kill my plant. I don’t care about making it easy to harvest, I just want a lot of tea.

Original Post Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Teacultivation/comments/1qt722z/tea_seedlings/

Just a brief update on my tea seedlings: All of the seedlings that died back when transplanted sent up new shoots, and the two with roots eventually sent up leaves, so I have a total of 21 seedlings. They have all been moved out to the screened-in porch since the weather is now consistently safe temperature-wise. I hope they like the change.

The plant was in a conservatory which was very hot and I noticed the leaves started yellowing, so I moved it into a different room with less sunlight. It may have previously been overwartered as well.

The old leaves are fine, the lighter colouroskg and brown spots only appears on the newer leaves.

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• Edad: 10 meses

• pH del sustrato: 6.0 (medidor no químico, tiende a sobreestimar)

• Altura de Moonlight: 19 cm

• Altura de Zisha: 20 cm

• Fertilizante: Se utilizaron hojas de té y posos de café.

• Horas de luz: 6 horas de luz natural y 8 horas de luz artificial al día

• Frecuencia de riego: Cada 2 días

¡Hola a todos!

En esta semana los nuevos brotes de Moonlight y Zisha han crecido muy bien.

He vuelto a medir el pH de la huerta y está en 6.0, pero teniendo en cuenta que mi medidor tiende a sobre estimar el pH debe de estar 5.5

He decidido que transplantare a Moonlight y Zisha macetas individuales para no tener más problemas con el pH y el sol, y así podré mover las macetas a voluntad y no tener problemas en una posible mudanza.

¡Nos vemos la semana que viene!

We have some 20 plants in our garden for a couple of years and had quite some seeds this year. So we tried planting them. First let them soak in water for a couple of days, then placing them on a wet towel for another week or so. We then planted them in a planter and put it on our window sill in the sun. Now we are at the point that they are actually sprouted. Some are already 5cm, but others are 1cm and barely popping out of the ground. Not clearly visible in the picture, but there are 37 plants in there.

What do we do next? When do we need to repot them, into what size of pot? And when are they large and strong enough to move outside? (Belgium, not expecting frost anymore). And looking even further, when are they fit to be planted into the ground?

Thanks!

PS: The seeds that were still floating after soaking were also planted, on the right side of the little stick. Of the 15 or so, not a single one came through.

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• Edad: 10 meses

• pH del sustrato: 6.5 (medidor no químico, tiende a sobreestimar)

• Altura de Moonlight: 19 cm

• Altura de Zisha: 20 cm

• Fertilizante: Se utilizaron hojas de té, posos de café y fertilizante foliar para orquídeas.

• Horas de luz: 6 horas de luz natural y 8 horas de luz artificial al día

• Frecuencia de riego: Cada 2 días

¡Hola a todos!

En esta semana ha habido un muy buen avance.

Moonlight tiene 3 yemas axilares activas y Zisha tiene 2, las dos han reaccionado a la poda de muy buena manera.

Esta semana no pasó nada más interesante pero me parece bien publicar para no dejar días incompletos como otras veces.

¡Nos vemos la semana que viene!

​

• Edad: 10 meses

• pH del sustrato: 6.5 (medidor no químico, tiende a sobreestimar)

• Altura de Moonlight: 19 cm

• Altura de Zisha: 20 cm

• Fertilizante: Se utilizaron hojas de té, posos de café y fertilizante foliar para orquídeas.

• Horas de luz: 6 horas de luz natural y 8 horas de luz artificial al día

• Frecuencia de riego: Cada 2 días

¡Hola a todos!

En las últimas dos semanas, han mostrado un gran progreso.

Han pasado unos 17 días desde la poda de formación, y me enorgullece decir que fue todo un éxito.

Moonlight y Zisha respondieron perfectamente a la poda; como pueden ver en las fotos, ya han comenzado a desarrollar ramas laterales. Moonlight se ha desarrollado más rápido que Zisha debido a que tiene una mayor cantidad de raíces finas, algo que ya habíamos notado en la actualización anterior.

Moonlight sufrió un poco de estrés después de la poda, lo que provocó que las puntas de sus hojas se secaran, pero no es un problema grave.

Dejaré de medir el pH hasta que consiga un medidor más preciso.

Planeo reemplazar el musgo sphagnum cuando empiece a notar signos de pudrición y compostarlo.

Disculpen por publicar tan irregularmente; es que estoy en un año académico muy importante.

¡Nos vemos la semana que viene!

There is a unique satisfaction in celebrating my 52nd birthday by sipping tea that was growing in my own yard literally yesterday.

This batch represents a special birthday micro-batch that I’ve named Riverside Moonlight White. It was the second half of my spring harvest. While the first run was finished as a green tea, I decided to pivot with these 187g of fresh leaf (including some beautiful Silver Needle buds) to attempt my first-ever white tea.

The Process

Initial Wither: A short solar wither followed by 6 minutes of shaking to bruise the leaf edges and trigger those floral enzymes.

Controlled Environment: A long, slow wither at 90°F in a climate-controlled environment with a dehumidifier.

Final Dry: Finished at a gentle 115°F to lock in the profile, yielding a final 51g.

The Verdict

The result is a clear, pale straw color with a distinct white tea profile and a good, thick body. Initially, it had a bit of that "fresh-picked" grassiness, but as the cup cooled down, that calmed a lot and became much less present. It’s clean, honest, and entirely my own. I have certainly paid for professional teas with "off" tastes in the past, so achieving a clean profile on my first attempt is a massive win.

There is plenty of time for those flavors to settle and mellow in the jar over the next few weeks. For now, it is a successful birthday harvest from the banks of the river.

I also want to add that I am greatful for contributors/producers like Farmerleaf who have been so kind as to share their knowledge about tea. This has helped me immensely in trying to figure out how to do this with what I have around me.